Health

Belzutifan, a first-in-class drug that arose from scientific discoveries at UT Southwestern Medical Center, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat some patients with earlier-stage kidney cancers in combination with an immunotherapy drug. This move marks the latest expansion of belzutifan's indications after it was originally approved in 2021.

Father's Day is a time to celebrate fathers and express gratitude for the sacrifices they make for their families. Today's dads are more involved in their children's lives than ever—up more than an hour per week over the last two decades.

Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a previously unrecognized way the kidneys regulate water balance—an advance that could lead to improved treatments for polycystic kidney disease (PKD) and other disorders. The study, led by Fouad Chebib, M.D., a nephrologist at Mayo Clinic, is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have developed a new toolkit to support health care professionals in delivering culturally informed menopause care. The work is highlighted in a Correspondence published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women's Health and draws on findings from a research project exploring the lived experiences of menopause among women from Black and Chinese communities in the U.K.

People are increasingly seeking health information online in Estonia, but the information they find is not leading to better health decisions. The concern is not a lack of information but people's digital literacy and ability to make sense of it.

Parents who find time for themselves feel better and show healthier physiological stress patterns on the same day, according to my new research. The findings suggest that even small moments away from daily demands may help mothers and fathers recharge emotionally and physically.

Nearly one in three adults in Denmark score high on the stress scale, and more than one in 10 feel lonely. This is shown by the large survey The National Health Profile 2025. There is good reason to pay attention to the mental health of the Danish population—and now researchers, municipalities and others working with well-being and mental health promotion have a new tool at their disposal.

A new study from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam–Rehbruecke (DIfE) and Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin shows for the first time that targeted control of human breathing rhythm can influence decision behavior by modulating heart and brain function. The research team led by Prof. Soyoung Q. Park was able to demonstrate that prolonged exhalation increases heart rate variability and the brain's reward sensitivity, thus enabling us to make bolder decisions. The study was published in the journal Neuron.

A study led by scientists from the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) has uncovered how the gut microbiome can influence gene activity in the liver by acting on short stretches of regulatory DNA that function like molecular "switches." By testing the activity of more than 100,000 human DNA switches linked to liver biology and comparing results from both in vitro and in vivo approaches, the team identified which switches operate under real physiological conditions and how microbial signals can modify their activity. This provides a clearer biological basis for how gut microbes shape liver function, offering new avenues for precision diagnostics and targeted therapies for liver disease. The findings were published in Molecular Cell.

Every time we move through a familiar environment, the hippocampus consults an internal map, a detailed spatial representation built up through repeated experience. But what happens when something unexpected occurs on a well-known route? Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn demonstrated in a mouse model that the brain does not redraw its maps from scratch. Instead, it annotates them, preserving the underlying spatial layout while overlaying new information on top of the existing map. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Screening people with the rare, inherited cancer-causing condition Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) brings both medical and economic benefits to patients and health care systems, according to research to be presented to the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics.

Patients with multiple myeloma who received a new immunotherapy combination lived significantly longer without their cancer worsening and showed early signs of improved survival in a large international clinical trial.

A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that an investigational mRNA influenza vaccine helps the immune system recognize a wider range of influenza viruses than today's standard flu shot, offering stronger and potentially longer-lasting protection.

A new study published in Nature Communications has uncovered a communication pathway between mitochondria and RNA granules that may help scientists understand how the toxic buildup of the TDP-43 protein leads to the development of certain neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Researchers from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, together with key pioneers in glioma biology, neuro-oncology and stem cell biology, have published a comprehensive review in Society for Neuro-Oncology's journal Neuro-Oncology outlining the evolving landscape of glioma organoid technologies and proposing a foundational classification framework to guide translational brain tumor research.